Battle of the browsers heats up as Firefox overtakes Microsoft

Mozilla Firefox was able to narrowly overtake both Microsoft Internet Explorer and its new Edge browser for the first time ever globally in April, according to a new report from the independent web analytics company StatCounter.

The company's data, which is based on over 15 billion page views per month on over three million websites, found that Firefox took 15.6 per cent of worldwide desktop browser usage last month, marking the first time that it has been able to overtake Microsoft's browsers.

Internet Explorer and Edge had a combined usage of 15.5 per cent. While Firefox was able to overtake Microsoft's browsers it still remains quite far behind Google's Chrome browser that had the highest usage globally at 60.5 per cent.

StatCounter's CEO, Aodhan Cullen elaborated further on the current state of the ongoing war between the browsers: “Microsoft might have expected a boost to its overall browser share as the result of the launch of Windows 10 with Edge but it hasn't happened to date. Chrome has continued to gain share globally.”

After the release of Windows 10 with its new Edge browser, Chrome continued to gain users and it saw an increase in usage as well. The browser saw a 7 per cent increase between now and this time last year where it controlled 53 per cent of global browsing. Chrome's usage also went up on mobile leading to a 44.3 per cent to 47.4 per cent increase across all platforms.

Chrome may control the largest portion of global browsing but Firefox is not out of the race thanks to Microsoft's decision to shift its focus from Internet Explorer to its new Edge browser.